Galen Response to Citizens' Health Care Working Group Recommendations

The Citizens' Health Care Working Group has offered a utopian wish list that fails to provide guidance for the hard policy and political decisions that must be addressed to make progress toward a more sensible, sound health care system.

For example, the task force calls for a core benefits package and for guaranteed financial protection against very high health care costs, suggesting a much larger role for government in our health care system than exists today. We would need a much more extensive national debate with the American people to define and articulate the tradeoffs that would be involved with these changes.

Ultimately, people and not government should be in control of making decisions about what health care is right for them and for their families.

While these recommendations are likely to receive extensive media coverage, their impact on the policy debate will be tangential because the task force did not propose viable, concrete policy solutions to achieve its goals.

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The Citizens' Health Care Working Group has offered a utopian wish list that fails to provide guidance for the hard policy and political decisions that must be addressed to make progress toward a more sensible, sound health care system.

For example, the task force calls for a core benefits package and for guaranteed financial protection against very high health care costs, suggesting a much larger role for government in our health care system than exists today. We would need a much more extensive national debate with the American people to define and articulate the tradeoffs that would be involved with these changes.

Ultimately, people and not government should be in control of making decisions about what health care is right for them and for their families.

While these recommendations are likely to receive extensive media coverage, their impact on the policy debate will be tangential because the task force did not propose viable, concrete policy solutions to achieve its goals.